Light: Self-Knowledgemon

A Clear Idea of One’s Self

Who art thou?… What sayest thou of thyself?—John 1:22.

We care less what men may think of us than what we think of ourselves. It has been said, “We are each one hanging up pictures in the chambers of our own souls, which we shall have to look at when we sit in the shadows.” John’s interest in this question was not from respect for the questioners; but they voiced a common question, which any man might ask, and which was echoed in his own heart; and our interest is not that we are especially like John, but rather that John is like us all. I. What am I in view of what has been done for me? My heart’s picture-gallery is of home and childhood. I am what I am in view of what my father and mother did for my childhood; in view of what early teachers, and friends did for my youth. I do not stand alone. If I seem to, like John, just come out of the desert, I stand really in the midst of the goodly company of wise and noble kindred and friends, among whom I grew up, and who left me richly endowed with devout traditions and honorable principles. To ignore them is to fail to know whom I really am. I am the child of my age. I am what the time has made me. Its thought has come into my mind; its sympathies are in my heart. II. I am in the presence of the demands of my time. I am not so presumptuous as to ignore those demands, or the noble company of living men who bid me join hands with them. After all, the question what I am amounts to the question, What can I do? I would answer humbly; but true humility is not in thinking meanly of one’s self, but rather in thinking generously of others. This is a grand time, because there are grand men in it; and, most of all, because Christ is in it. John the Baptist felt little as compared with Christ, but the more he saw Christ the braver he was to do his part. I may be but a voice in the wilderness, but I can lean on those great cosmic forces which are moving the earth, and my voice shall have part in the great chorus heard in heaven, saying that the kingdoms have become the Lord’s. Some men have a Ptolemaic notion of life: their little earth is the center around which all things move. If I have been of that sort, I will remember that the age has outgrown that. It is time to reconstruct one’s life on the Copernican theory, admitting that ours is only a little earth in the great universe, and finding our true solar center in the great moral gravitation of the Divine Love. III. What am I for the future? The future of John the Baptist, when he was asked this question, was very short; only a few months. Jesus had a longer career, but it was only three years. All life is short in itself. But we do not complain that the night is short if we are looking for the dawn, nor that the winter is short if we are eager for the spring. A short life is long enough to take the right direction, and direction is the main fact about our life. For our children we ask: How are they coming out? So God asks about His children. There really is more in us than we have ever brought out, and a true answer as to what we are will take our growth into account. Conclusion. We are not left alone to answer this searching question, any more than John was left alone to answer. There was a common opinion of men about John, which contained a fair answer, and which indeed was what made the Jewish rulers send and ask him. All men held John to be a prophet, and there was no escaping that popular opinion, nor the presumption that, on the whole, it was just. But Our Lord did not leave John to the vindication of public opinion. He had known John from their boyhood, had watched his early career as forerunner of the Messiah, and had himself accepted his baptism even against John’s wondering protest; and John had pointed out Jesus and borne witness to Him in those early days by the Jordan. So now the Lord spoke out for his friend and forerunner with a voice that ought to have reached the seared conscience of Herod: “What went ye out to see?” What was this John whom Herod keeps imprisoned in Machserus? A prophet, like Elijah, but greater, because nearer the true Light; the very morning star of the new day. We are not as famous, nor is it likely common opinion would speak so strongly about us; yet we have a reputation, such as it is, that bears witness what sort of men we are, and when men for any reason ask about us, this answer comes up. It comes up also to meet our opinion of ourselves, whether favorable or unfavorable, and sets us back sometimes into more modest estimates, and sometimes encourages us with a better estimate than we have ourselves held. Blessed is it for us if our Lord takes it on Him to answer for us. The people round Him who counted John a prophet were greatly uplifted in their regard for John by His words. He answered for John at the time when John was in prison and despondent and discouraged—we are not told whether John’s messengers to Jesus at that sad time took back to him the words of appreciation which Jesus spoke. As for ourselves we are assured of “an advocate with the Father,” and His answer for us is all we can ask. Never can we be so depressed and despondent that He will not say, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

Franklin Noble, Sermons in Illustrations (E. B. Treat & Company, 1907), 15–17.